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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23008726">Scar Tissue</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChubbyHornedEquine/pseuds/ChubbyHornedEquine'>ChubbyHornedEquine</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Slow Show - mia_ugly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Feels, Drug Use, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Pining, Self-Harm, anthony's burn scars, but there's also a fair amount of hope, it hurts ok? it hurts a lot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:14:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,691</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23008726</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChubbyHornedEquine/pseuds/ChubbyHornedEquine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of how Anthony (Slow Show) got his burn scars.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Slow Show Metaverse</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Scar Tissue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><strong>TRIGGER WARNING</strong> for: self-harm, suicidal ideation, negative self image, depression, drug use. I wrote this as someone who used to self harm and was very suicidal (but 4 years self-harm free, go me!) So like, idk if that adds any weight to the warnings but please take care of yourself.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Anthony is sitting on a couch…he thinks. He might be on the floor with his head on the couch cushions. Shit, he could be entirely on the floor. No couch involved at all.<br/>
<br/>
Is there even a couch in this room?<br/>
<br/>
He looks around and everything moves slow and underwater and perfect and he realizes it doesn’t really matter because he feels <em>so fucking good</em>. Why was he keeping himself from this? What was the fucking point? Nothing, <em>nothing</em>, in the past three months has felt this good. He takes a deep breath with it, sucking in all the euphoria in the room, it surrounds him like a cloud of perfection and he just can’t get enough of it.<br/>
<br/>
Fuck the meetings.<br/>
<br/>
Fuck the stupid group discussions.<br/>
<br/>
Fuck-fuck his <em>parents</em>.<br/>
<br/>
He laughs at that. It, too, is slow and dragging and it dredges up something a little deeper, a little harder, a little sharper. Fuck them. They don’t <em>care</em>. Yeah, sure, they pay for the meetings and the therapy and the rehab stay and, but that’s money. It’s <em>just</em> money. And lord knows they have enough. More than. They won’t notice it missing.<br/>
<br/>
Wouldn’t notice him missing either, he thinks, the sharp bits getting sharper, getting stuck in his throat.<br/>
<br/>
And fuck Luke.<br/>
<br/>
Well he did but that’s not really the point.<br/>
<br/>
Bastard didn’t even check on him. Not once. Not a concerned text. A quick “Hey break up’s still on but I also heard you came out while high as a fucking kite, lost your job, and maybe you might have some regrets about how that was handled and are you okay?”<br/>
<br/>
Shit, Crowley would’ve settled for one of those cruel photos he used to send whenever they fought and Luke stormed out and got drunk and high and shoved his tongue down someone else’s throat. He’d send Crowley pictures of it. Of him in a bar, someone latched onto his neck. His reflection in a bathroom mirror, dimly lit, stalls behind him marked with stickers and graffiti and paint peeling but all Crowley could focus on would be the head of hair just visible at the bottom edge of the photo. On Luke’s undone pants. A hint of stomach and hip bone and then—the back of someone’s head. Luke’s smile would be thin and cruel, the message to Crowley clear: He can have anyone he wants, at any point in time. He’s <em>choosing</em> to waste his time on Crowley. And if Crowley wanted to keep him he had to <em>be better</em>.</p>
<p><br/>
(Avery’s mouth is nothing like Luke’s. His lips are plush where Luke’s were thin, barely there. Kissing him was always hard, always angry. Crowley can imagine what kissing Avery would be like. He tries not to, he really does. But as the small boat rocks a bit and Avery slips another piece of dark chocolate between those pink lips it’s hard not to. He tries to look around, at anything else. At the water. At the shore. At the horizon. But his eyes always track back to those lips. There’s a small smudge of chocolate on his lower lip and Crowley wants to take it between his teeth and suck and—<br/>
<br/>
He clears his throat, looks away at nothing at all again, “Can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”<br/>
<br/>
“Oh hush,” Avery says in a tone that Crowley is sure is <em>meant</em> to be admonishing but it’s honestly practically flirtatious.<br/>
<br/>
Then Avery lets out a little “oh” and his tongue darts out to lick up that bit of chocolate and Crowley is fairly certain his entire soul leaves his body.<br/>
<br/>
<em>Stop lusting after your best friend in this tiny fucking boat, idiot.</em><br/>
<br/>
Reminding himself that Avery is, in fact, his best friend almost always does the trick. He can’t mess this up the way he messes up everything else. He’ll keep his destructive fingertips to himself. Burn holes in his skin with the heat of his want. But he won’t touch Avery with them. He can’t. And besides, even if the man weren’t straight (ish. That ish gets stronger and stronger the more they spend time together.) and even if he didn’t have a partner (a lovely partner that is so sweet and just a little loud and a very strong contender for the not-at-all-coveted title of Crowley’s second friend), he wouldn’t want Crowley. He’d want…someone <em>better</em>.)</p>
<p><br/>
His fingers itch to pull out his phone and scroll through old photos but they’re all gone. Deleted at some point in rehab as part of some sort of moving forward, letting go bullshit. Doesn’t mean he can’t easily find him on Instagram though. See whose waist his arm is around now.<br/>
<br/>
Crowley reaches an arm behind him to pull his phone out of his back pocket, leaning to one side as he does, and completely overshoots how far he has to lean and hits the floor.<br/>
<br/>
Huh.<br/>
<br/>
So he <em>was</em> on a couch.<br/>
<br/>
Slowly, feels like days later, he rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. Where the fuck is he? Why is this ceiling like twelve feet high? Who has twelve foot high ceilings? Dukes maybe. Duke of Ceiling Town. Fuck dukes. And fuck Luke. And fuck <em>the industry.</em><br/>
<br/>
Everyone, <em>everyone</em>, turned their backs. Oh sure, sure, yeah there were flowers sent once he was in rehab. Good luck cards. The perfect balance of encouraging and polite. A display of basic human decency while staying far the fuck away. No one meant it though. Performative Empathy he liked to call it. If one more fucking person took him by the shoulder and said “I see you” he was going to put the next needle right in his fucking eye.<br/>
<br/>
Oh there’s a thought.<br/>
<br/>
The next needle.<br/>
<br/>
He chews his lip. No it’s supposed to be just the one trip.<br/>
<br/>
He shoves his hand in his too-small pocket to get the crushed pack of cigarettes. It takes hours, it feels like, before he has them in his hand and then he remembers he needs a lighter to light them, he can't just will them into being lit, and so another undetermined expanse of eternity is spent fishing his lighter out of his pocket as well. He lights it, takes a deep, long drag and lets it out slow.<br/>
<br/>
Just one. One last one to…to do something. To feel good. And he does. Nothing else feels this good. Nothing else ever will.<br/>
<br/>
Luke did.<br/>
<br/>
No, fuck him.<br/>
<br/>
Acting did.<br/>
<br/>
No, fuck…well. Fuck the industry. But the art? The craft? That wonderful blend of excitement and just a hint of fear (what if the writing is garbage?) when holding a new script. And when it’s a good one, when the plot and characters and the lines are <em>good</em>, and you’re reading and you know you’re supposed to just read it once through without yet making choices, without making hard decisions, but you can’t, you can’t <em>help</em> it because oh you already know how you’re going to tackle that one line on page forty-seven. And if you do it just right there’s a moment fifty pages later that would be a perfect callback. You don’t have a line fifty pages in but you’re in the scene and any director worth their little director hat is going to cut to you in that moment and you can already feel the bubble of emotions you’re going to tap into, it’s right there, right in the center of your chest and it will be so easy to pull it forward. But you’re on your second read through now and there’s a scene on page sixty-five that has you a little concerned, that’s going to be a little tougher, you’ll have to dig a little deeper and if your love interest can’t cut it on their end then no matter how deep you dig it’s going to fall flat. But that’s ok. That’s alright. That’s what table reads are for. You’ll be able to get a feel for them, just as they’ll get a feel for you and you can make adjustments and if they have even a modicum of training they’ll do the same. There’s nothing like a table read. The room vibrates with nerves and excitement. Introductions are done and they’re always awkward. If the script is bad, no one wants to be there but a check pays the rent. And if it’s good everyone wants to dive in, get their grubby, filthy hands all over it and tear it apart together and rebuild it. It’s nothing short of <em>fucking magic</em> the way so many hands and minds come together to create a single cohesive project. Directors and actors and costume and the set people and the PAs and tech and make-up, not to mention producers and the writers and editors and the sound people and the effects people and truly, <em>truly</em>, it should be a mess. Movies and TV shows and theatre shouldn’t exist. It shouldn’t <em>work</em> but it does and it’s so goddamn beautiful and it doesn’t matter what the awards people say or what the critics say, it does, it feels good when they like it, but really it doesn’t because at the end of the day you made <em>art</em>. You created something that didn’t exist before and will never exist again, not in the same way. Similar maybe, but not identical. Not the same. Not yours. You had a hand in creating something new, something beautiful. Even if its garbage, even if it’s the worst script in the world, even if it’s cliché and trite and the effects are bad and you’ve heard better dialogue in pornos, <em>it didn’t exist before.</em> And now it does. And you helped make that. And there’s something so genuine and pure to it that you can feel a bit of the tension in your chest release.<br/>
<br/>
There’s nothing like it.<br/>
<br/>
Nothing.<br/>
<br/>
Not even, Crowley realizes with a sickening lurch of his stomach, not even this.<br/>
<br/>
And he’ll never have it again.<br/>
<br/>
God, fuck, he can't breathe, he can't—Crowley scrambles upright, yanking his shirt up and over his head, his skin feels like its rioting. Like even it doesn't want to be near him. That sounds about right. The cigarette is on the floor, burning a hole in the carpet. He picks it up and puts it back in his mouth, smacking at the little burn mark.<br/>
<br/>
Crowley stares at it. Oops. That'll be there forever. A lovely little reminder of the time Anthony Crowley fell off the wagon after only three short months. Well, at least until someone comes and scrubs it away or replaces the carpet or just condemns the whole damn building for being tainted with him.</p>
<p><br/>
(They float along and as it gets later there are fewer and fewer other boats on the water, fewer excuses for him to look away. Avery has finished his chocolate, thank God for that. And he sits there, thumbing through his little poetry book, the setting sun hitting those curls just right. As if there's a wrong way for sunlight to hit him.<br/>
<br/>
Crowley wonders, briefly, what the morning sun would look like on him. Creeping golden rays of the sunrise as it kisses his shoulder and neck in a way Crowley can only dream of. He swallows. Avery lets out a content little sigh, closes his book, and looks up at him. And he smiles. And Crowley, before he can think better of it, before he can think of a smart comment or a snide remark, before he can remember that he’s Anthony Crowley, a collection of taped together bendy straws in tight pants, one warrior pose away from a complete fucking meltdown, that he’s ruined and undesirable and a walking canvas splattered with bad choices and and and and—he smiles back.)</p>
<p><br/>
He looks down at the cigarette. At the thin trail of smoke coming from it. Bending in the air with his exhales. At the short build-up of ash at the end, one flick away from dusting the floor.</p>
<p><br/>
(He’s sitting there, in a boat, at sunset, smiling at the most beautiful, ridiculously kind man he’s ever known. His best friend. And this man, this angel, is smiling right back at him almost like he’s a human and…it’s ok. It’ll be ok.)</p>
<p><br/>
There are times, moments that have been built up to, the tension ratcheting higher and higher, the breaking point eminent, inevitable. There are times when there are certain decisions you make, good, or bad, but you made them and you had your reasoning, good, or bad.<br/>
<br/>
And there are times when none of that happens at all. There are times when your mind is moving at a crawl. When it's been stuck in the same loop for hours, days, shit maybe your whole fucking life. There are times when you're watching your hand move and the decision seems to come later. When the realization catches up and all you can do is watch. There are times when your mind is so blessedly clear and quiet, a feat you'll spend meditation after meditation trying to recreate but right now it's happening all its own, perfect and silent but for the very, very faint sob in the back of your mind because you know you don't want to do this.<br/>
<br/>
The cigarette hits his chest with a hiss. It'll never be ok.</p>
<p><br/>
(While they’re smiling at one another like idiots, Crowley’s chest and heart doing things he’s fairly certain he’s much too old for, a boat speeds by. They rock with it, Avery lets out a startled yelp and before Crowley knows it he’s in the water and it's cold and sudden and—)</p>
<p><br/>
his whole body tightens with it. Oh god, oh fuck, oh fuck why did he do that fuck fuck fuck—</p>
<p><br/>
(fuck! The book! Crowley and Avery have practically finished dragging the boat back to the sand when he remembers it.<br/>
<br/>
There are times, moments that happen so quickly, that sneak up on you so deftly you have no time to prepare, no time to weigh the good or bad, to chart out a careful course, you simply have to act. And even rarer, there are times when you know exactly what to do. You can feel it down to the marrow and you move. Confident. Sure. Resolved.<br/>
<br/>
Crowley dives below; the water isn't as cold this time.)</p>
<p><br/>
His teeth are clenched, his hands are shaking, the cigarette is crushed in his fist. His lungs hurt from holding his breath. He can’t let it out. He won’t let it out. If he does he’ll start crying and he’ll never stop. Oh god, oh god this is a new low. A line’s been crossed and he knows, he <em>knows</em> it. The rational part of him, however intoxicated it is, however slowly it’s moving, still knows this is new, this is different, and this is <em>bad</em>. And yet…<br/>
<br/>
And yet all he can think as he looks down at the burn is that it’s so small. It’s so small for something that hurts so much and it isn’t fair.<br/>
<br/>
He takes a desperate, ragged breath and it comes out just as shaky.<br/>
<br/>
The burn aches and he knows he should pull out his phone and look up how to take care of it. He should get up and stumble to the door and lean out and call for…Colin? Gavin? …Erik? Whoever the fuck it was that took his money and gave him the shit and a thumbs up as they closed the door behind him. They’d…<br/>
<br/>
Call someone? Get him help? Or just kick him out with a sneer? Sure it’s not a back alley somewhere, it’s not a bathroom floor in the back of an underground club, it’s someone’s very nice, very posh house with too many rooms and ugly wallpaper. That doesn’t mean he’d get any more help here than he would tucked up in someone’s flat on a couch with more furry occupants than springs. He’s supposed to be cool about this. Collected. If he can’t keep his shit together he doesn’t get to be in the cool kids club.<br/>
<br/>
And what a club it is.<br/>
<br/>
He laughs and all the sharp bits in his throat are in his mouth and he can’t swallow around the pain of his fear, of his anger, of his sadness.<br/>
<br/>
He’s already lighting the next cigarette before he fully decides to. Because sometimes that’s how it happens. Because sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason. Sometimes it’s not to feel <em>more</em> or feel <em>less</em>. Sometimes your hands move and your mind is screaming, pleading no and your heart is so heavy and each laborious thud is a rebellion against the inevitable and your lungs are tight, so tight and you just want to breathe, you just want to <em>live</em>.<br/>
<br/>
He presses the tip to his skin and--</p>
<p><br/>
(he gasps as he resurfaces. It's there, he knows it's there. The residual waves and splashing about keep making it skip right through his fingers but he's not going to give up, he won't let this be--)</p>
<p><br/>
ruined. That's what he is, what's he's done. Fallen off the wagon again. Three months of meetings and shakes and plans, down the drain. Couldn't even stick with it for three entire months. Just ninety days.  He lights another cigarette, hands shaking, barely able to see it through his tears. One more. One for each stupid fucking month he undid. He ruined with his touch.</p>
<p><br/>
One more. Just --</p>
<p><br/>
(one more time. He can do this. This one thing he can fucking do. He has to.)</p>
<p><br/>
Crowley is on his side, three crushed, stubbed out cigarettes on the carpet next to him as he shakes and sobs.<br/>
<br/>
He's so broken. He's so broken and he's spilling out everywhere. Star matter going dark, lights blinking out one by one as they're swallowed up in the all-consuming ache of his emptiness. He's so empty. He's so empty and God everything hurts. The burns hurt, his arm hurts, his chest his ribs his brain his heart. His heart hurts worst of all. Can you die from heart ache? Can you mourn the death of a version of you you'll never get to meet?<br/>
<br/>
It’s wrong. It’s all wrong and he’s wrong and he’s so empty and nothing will ever be enough, nothing will ever fill this chasm inside. Not the drugs. Not the meditating. Fuck therapy. There won’t be any more acting, no more scripts or trailers or shitty coffee or that manic, delicious, giddy bubble at the start of a new scene, a new day, a new set, the costumes, the props. There won’t be any more table reads. No more Lukes with razor wire smiles and cruel photos and crueler words. No more Lukes with clay under their nails and lightning in their kisses.<br/>
<br/>
He feels in his bones that this is all it will ever be. Emptiness. And it will have to be enough.</p>
<p><br/>
(Avery looks like he's looking at a ghost. Like Crowley is some sea monster that's just crawled out from the deep. He's sure his hair is a mess, he’s sopping wet, dripping, his already too-tight clothes are absolutely plastered to him, his glasses stayed on from sheer force of will and he's holding the book out.<br/>
<br/>
It's too late, it's already ruined isn't it? It's not enough, he's not enough , he's—<br/>
<br/>
"You," Avery's face is doing something Crowley can't figure out. He looks…almost scared. "You didn’t have to—“<br/>
<br/>
"Can't imagine the fuss you'd make if it was <em>lost</em>," Crowley says. It wasn't anything, he wants to say. Just rummaged in the water. He was already drenched anyway. It's nothing. He's...it's nothing.<br/>
<br/>
Avery reaches out and takes the book. Their fingers brush. It’s not the first time. They've touched on set. Photo shoots. Elbows brushing at the crafty table as coffee stirrers and sugar packets and donuts are shuffled about. But this feels different. There's a heat to it that chases away the damp, that curls up his arm and settles in his chest, it keeps his heart stoked and beating.<br/>
<br/>
He swallows. "Dry it out standing," he offers, to fill the air, to hear something other than the stutter-start of his aching heart. It hurts so much and fuck if he can’t get enough of it. "Should be okay—“<br/>
<br/>
"Yes I <em>know</em> how to dry out a book," Avery says and Crowley can’t help but smile. He'll take snark over that sheet-white look of terror, of incomprehension he saw when he came out the water. Snark is good. Snark he understands. And snark, on Avery Fell, is so fucking endearing somehow.<br/>
<br/>
"Come on then,” Crowley says. “Don't care what you say, I’m calling us a cab. I'm not walking back in this state." He pats his pockets, his eternally too-small pockets. His phone must have popped right out when they hit the<br/>
water. "Oh bugger me, my mobile—“<br/>
<br/>
Avery pulls out his own, wiping water off the screen with wet hands. It seems to be functioning, just barely. They manage to call a cab and while they wait for it to arrive Crowley shuffles nervously on the sand. He steals a glance at Avery and he's looking down at the water logged book. His expression is completely different from when they'd seen it in the store. That first look at it and he was interested, sure, maybe a little fond, a little hesitant, which Crowley chucked up to Avery not wanting him to spend the money. But now, now he looks...reverent. The sun is hitting him again and he really truly looks like an angel.<br/>
<br/>
Avery looks up. He looks at Crowley. And he smiles.<br/>
<br/>
And Crowley, so desperately in love he can feel the ache of it in his teeth, so full of hope it leaves him light headed and short of breath, so full of everything he thought he'd never have that...that it's enough. It's enough and fuck, he's actually happy. In this moment, with this man, it's enough.</p>
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